Late Edition
by ellenshipley
Summary: One story in the paper stubbornly refuses to go away. Gary runs into a biker with a death wish. The characters don't belong to me; I only borrowed them.
1. Chapter 1

Richie Ryan wove his bike in and out of Chicago traffic like he expected to live forever. Which, of course, he did.

One of the pure joys of being an Immortal, he reflected, was being able to give vent to his reckless tendencies. What perpetual teen wouldn't be tempted? Shins healed, bones mended. About the only drawback Richie could detect from living full out on the road was a steady diet of bugs in his teeth.

That and the biting wind currently whipping off Lake Michigan and channeling through the towering canyons—Chicago's famous lake-effect weather. Born and bred to the balmier (by comparison) Seacouver ocean breezes, Richie was not favorably impressed.

He had to get in somewhere out of the cold before parts of him started to freeze and snap off. Mac hadn't been entirely clear on that concept, and Richie wasn't anxious to test his theory that things might grow back.

He was very near the Art Museum and the trendy Gallery Row. Mac had rattled off half a dozen places he might call in and get a quick appraisal on a bauble-or a line on a new blade, should he ever need one.

Richie hove to in front of a promising antique facade and snagged a lucky parking slot. What were the odds? He was just stowing his helmet and gloves when he was accosted by an earnest dark haired man.

"You can't park here," he said, gesturing with a folded newspaper at Richie's perfectly legally parked bike. The wind caught and ruffled his dark hair, giving him an air of madness—or maybe it was his urgent tone of voice.

"Why the heck not, buddy?" Richie asked through chattering teeth. The guy was maybe 30, dressed for the weather in a parka and leather gloves, but no hat. Harmless enough, except for the eyes. They burned with a conviction all too familiar to the young Immortal.

Richie's ice blue eyes narrowed. He didn't detect the buzz that signaled another of his kind. A nut then.

"It's, ah, street cleaning day," the nut case said, moving to block Richie's way to the sidewalk. "They'll boot your bike. No, they'll tow it," he amended, thinking on the fly. "I saw the truck just around the corner." He danced around Richie, arms flapping, perhaps from the cold.

Richie scanned the street up and down. He didn't see any tow truck. What he did see was a street full of cars, none of them sporting tickets or booted contraptions on their wheels.

"They, ah, have it in for motorcycles," the guy said, following his gaze. "I can't tell you how many I've seen towed away from this very spot."

Ah hell, who needs this? He wouldn't be able to take his mind off his bike with this nut hanging around it.

"You win, buddy. The spot's all yours."

Richie gunned his engine back to life and roared back into traffic. He caught sight of the nut case over his shoulder as he turned the corner. The guy was just standing there, reading his paper and frowning.

* * *

Gary Hobson huddled on a barstool and cupped his coffee mug in both hands, trying unsuccessfully to banish the cold. The paper never took a snow day—or a wind chill day, for that matter. The mail carrier's motto had nothing on it for stubborn dismissal of the elements.

For whatever reason—and he sure couldn't think of any—he had been getting tomorrow's paper today, and acting on that foreknowledge to set things right. How could he not, when a little intervention on his part could make all the difference in so many people's lives. But it played havoc with his own laughable life.

"How's it going, Gary? Marissa, his partner and confidant, asked from her perch at the bar they owned together. She kept things running smoothly in Gary's unpredictable, hectic absences while he ran around the city helping perfect strangers.

Gary grimaced. "I've been beaned by an old lady with an umbrella and chased by her little rat dog." He didn't bother to display the frayed cuff of his pants leg for her perusal as Marissa was blind.

"That's gratitude for you," Marissa smiled, commiserating with her partner and friend. "Are you done for the day?"

Gary frowned. "Not yet. I stopped this biker kid from losing his head in a really bizarre accident at an antique shop uptown, but—"

"But what?" Marissa prompted, when she detected a strange note in Gary's voice.

"Well, now he loses his head in another bizarre accident, outside a different uptown gallery." He set down his cup, the coffee gone sour in his stomach.

"Ouch. Talk about sticking your head where it doesn't belong. A biker, you say? Sounds dangerous. Maybe you should call the police on this one, Gary."

"And tell'em what? I'm open to suggestion." There was something decidedly dangerous about that kid, and the last thing Gary wanted was to meet him in a dark alley, in—he consulted his watch—less than four hours.

"You could say you saw him steal something. It's an art gallery, right?"

Gary grimaced, still smarting from his last false report to the police. Detective Armstrong had threatened to toss him in the drunk tank and lose the key the next time he got called out on a wild goose chase.

"I think I'll take my chances with the biker."

"Ok, Gary. If you think that's best." Her voice implied that she did not.

A plate of sandwiches arrived and Gary lost himself in the gustatory moment. Plenty of time yet to think of a strategy for the headless rider.

He had a full afternoon ahead of him in the meantime. A faulty space heater and a slip-and-fall, widely spaced in city blocks if not in time. The address of one of them seemed familiar. Didn't Detective Armstrong and his wife live somewhere near there? Gary chewed on it along with his pastrami on rye.

The biker would have to wait his turn.

* * *

Richie pulled his bike around the back of another up-scale art gallery and let himself in the back door. The owner was an old friend of Mac's, from his Tessa days, as Richie had come to think of that period of his life when the world was bright with promise. He had a family, an interesting job, and a—future. Now he just had time.

A little bell announced his presence to the round little man who poked his head around the corner of the front gallery.

"Yes? May I help y—? Richie! My dear boy!"

Richie endured the avuncular hug that only came up to his breast bone. "You've grown!" (He hadn't.) "And so muscular!" (That part was true enough.)

"How are you, Rene? Mac sends his best." Richie let himself be herded into the private gallery and office where the good stuff was kept under closer eye. Richie recognized one of Tessa's pieces that Mac had made him sell off after her death. It was comforting to see it again. If her art lived on in the world, a little piece of her did too.

"What brings you to our fair city? Is Mac with you?" He looked over Richie's shoulder, half expecting to see the Highlander.

"Nah, he's back in Seacouver." Richie took the proffered chair—a Chippendale, he was pleased to notice. He still had the knack. Maybe he'd open his own art gallery one day. "He doesn't travel much. Except for Paris."

They grew reflective for a spell, each thinking his own thoughts concerning a once-vibrant Frenchwoman who touched so many lives, not least of all Richie Ryan, one-time street punk.

"You look good, Richie. But what's with all the leather?"

Richie shrugged, but there was a hint of his old sardonic smile. "You can't ride a hog in chinos."

"Ah," said Rene, nodding sagely. "The armor of the road warrior. I understand. You must-look a part." He seemed satisfied with his own explanation.

As far as it went. But for Richie it wasn't a part anymore. Something had happened to fine-tune his perception of the world between his last road trip and this.

The last time he had been running—from his teacher, from himself, from what he feared to become. Since then, he had come to terms with his immortality and the need to kill to stay alive. He no longer went looking for a fight, but neither did he run from one.

He was Immortal, and he knew what he had to do to stay that way. Anger was no longer a part of his make-up. Or fear.

That much he'd learned from the Highlander. The hard way. Richie favored Mac's old friend with a boyish grin and slouched rakishly in his chair.

* * *

Gary skidded to a halt on a patch of black ice outside an all-too-familiar brownstone walk-up. The Armstrong's building, all right. Great. He tugged his ear flaps down against the chill with his gloved hands and consulted the paper again.

No mistake. Slip-and-fall accident at this address in—he pushed up his coat sleeve—two minutes. A pregnant woman. Weren't the Armstrong's expecting a baby—?

The door to the vestibule opened and Meredith Armstrong stepped precariously out onto the slick steps.

"Here, let me help you!" Gary shouted, almost startling her into losing her balance. He raced up the icy steps and took her arm firmly. "These old buildings can be tricky."

"Gary Hobson—?" she asked, staring into his face with dawning recognition. "Are you looking for my husband?"

"No," he said, staggering under her surprising weight. "I was just, ah, passing by."

She gave him an incredulous eyebrow. "Really."

"You shouldn't be out on a day like this, Mrs. Armstrong. Not in your condition." He let out an involuntary _ooph_ as his footing shifted.

"I have a doctor's appointment," she replied, leaning heavily on him for support. She looked up as a yellow cab slid sideways to the curb. "There's my cab now-_oh!_"

Gary took his eye off the treacherous steps for just a second and all was lost. He went down hard on his keister, and Meredith came down hard on top of him. He was flattened under her generous mass, knocking the air right out of him.

"Hey, lady—are you all right?" Gary had a vague impression of the cab driver helping Meredith to her wobbly feet and walking her gingerly to the cab.

Gary struggled to his own feet unassisted.

"You gotta be careful, lady, in your condition," said the helpful cabby.

"Gary, are you all right?" she called from the cab as it slid away from the curb. He waved the paper cheerfully, with a pained grin frozen on face.

He opened the paper with numb fingers. The slip-and-fall article was gone. He rubbed his backside in irony and flipped to the biker article.

It was still there. The young tough was going to lose his head in a freak accident of undetermined cause.

Searching the streets in vane for a cab, he shrugged his collar higher and trotted back uptown to the gallery district.

* * *

Rene insisted on taking Richie out to dinner and Richie was glad of the company and the memories. He had precious little past to savor. An evening spent swapping stories over good food was not to be passed up lightly.

Richie waited on the sidewalk out front while Rene went for his car. He insisted on taking Richie to some fancy feed bag they'd all eaten at in happier times, despite Richie's dubious attire. Richie shrugged. If Rene thought it was cool then who was he to balk at a free meal?

A movement caught his eye across the street, and Richie stiffened. The nut case with the newspaper was trying to look unobtrusive. Damn, he _had_ to be a Watcher. For a bunch of busybodies who supposedly never interfered, the Watchers sure knew how to make a nuisance of themselves.

Richie was just about to stride across the street and give the guy a piece of his mind when he felt the buzz that heralded the arrival of one of his own.

He forgot the Watcher in his instinctive need to locate his adversary. Richie scanned the faces of passers-by in the growing dark as they hurried to their cars or into shelter, but none cast back his searching gaze.

It was close by, then, but out of sight. Richie started moving toward the corner and access to the alley. They would need somewhere away from curious eyes. Yes, the buzz was stronger in that direction. Richie let his mind slip into the familiar pattern of alert patience. He schooled his face to blankness. His youthful features took on a timeless quality.

Someone was waiting just inside the alley and Richie began to take his measure. Confident, he was not one new to the Game. That much he knew was evident in his own gait. They might fight, they might not. It would fall to the newcomer to decide. Richie was prepared either way.

The moment evaporated as quickly as it arose when the bumbling Watcher shouted something from across the street and the newcomer faded from sight and sense.

Richie turned to face the fellow with a sigh that came close to a growl fed by unspent tension. It wouldn't be wise for the guy to stick around just now.

Obstinately oblivious to his danger, the madman trotted across traffic straight toward the young Immortal, babbling something about motorcycles.

Richie froze him with a glance. "You've got a death wish, buddy," he said too quietly to be mistaken.

The fellow's eyes went round, but he persevered, clutching his paper in both hands, as if it could protect him. "I, ah, I thought I saw someone messing with your bike," he lied unconvincingly. "This isn't a safe neighborhood for motorcycles. They disappear all the time."

"I know who you are," Richie cut him off. He was damn tired of their infernal interference in his life. "And I know what you do."

The guy looked as if he had just been pole axed, but he recovered enough to stammer, "I don't know what you mean. I was just walking by..." He waved his paper as if to ward off the thought.

Richie took a step toward him and he shut up. "You tell Joe Dawson I've made you, and if he doesn't want to explain another headless body, he'd better find you a different assignment."

The guy made fish noises, but no sounds came out. Rene pulled up to the curb just then and Richie got in without a backward glance.


	2. Chapter 2

Detective Paul Armstrong riffled through his current case load and cast an eye at the gathering gloom out the window. Another fruitless late night. This was getting to be a tiresome drag, and an unwanted burden on his already burdened wife. He reached for the phone to give her the bad news, and it rang in his hand.

"Armstrong," he said with clipped, curt tones, which he softened immediately. "Oh, hi hon. What's up? Nothing wrong-?"

Meredith sounded tired, a usual occurrence, given her current condition, but there was nothing alarming in her tone. "I went to the doctor today," she babbled on. "He thinks I'm about ready to pop."

"Anyone can see that," Paul chuckled, but it was a relief to have the doctor's corroboration. His case load forgotten for the moment, the detective chatted amiably with his wife.

"That strange young man, Gary Hobson, stopped by today," she said, unaware of the effect that statement had on her husband. He went very still as the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

"What did he want?" he asked his wife carefully. Strange occurrences followed in the wake of—or sometimes preceded—Gary Hobson—the last person the detective wanted anywhere near his wife. "Did he say anything or do anything odd?"

"Well," she thought for a moment. "He was just passing by, which seemed odd. He did help me down the stairs—they were awfully slippery." She chuckled, remembering. "I'm afraid we both lost our balance and I landed rather hard on the poor man."

Armstrong was drumming his fingers on the desk, thinking skeptical thoughts. "Well, it was probably a good thing he happened by, then." He tried to keep the tension out of his voice. "I'll speak to the super about those steps."

"Good idea, dear. Will you be coming home soon?" She couldn't keep the wistful note out of her voice. It had been a long, tedious day. She sounded tired.

"Soon," he promised. "I've got to make a stop first. Don't wait dinner."

He rang off and grabbed his coat. Hobson. That name was becoming a swear word in his vocabulary. The guy was certifiable, or psychic, or psychopathic. Too many strange occurrences happened around that guy.

Armstrong left his work files on his desk and added one more task to the case load. Hobson better have a damn good explanation for turning up at his wife's elbow this afternoon.

* * *

Safely ensconced in his office once more, Gary Hobson tried to make sense of the second unusual encounter with the biker. Marissa lent a comforting ear.

"And then he said, 'tell Joe Dawson if he doesn't want to explain another headless body,' he should find me another job, or something like that." Gary studied his friend's face for her reaction to that startling statement as they sat together over the paper.

"But what did he mean?" Marissa asked, puzzlement creasing her dark features. "Who's Joe Dawson? And what job is he talking about?"

"I don't know," Gary said, still trying to make sense of it. "There's nothing in the paper about him, either." He tapped the folded paper on the edge of his cluttered desk.

"And what did he mean about another headless body?" Marissa put her finger on the part that was worrying Gary. How could the biker have known he was about to lose his head in a bizarre accident?

"Maybe..." Gary voiced the thought that niggled at his brain. "Maybe it isn't an accident."

"How could it not be, Gary?" Marissa said. "It's too horrible to think of it happening on purpose." Such things didn't happen in her well-ordered life, even considering the strange things the paper brought daily.

"Well, maybe he makes it happen somehow," Gary mused.

"But it's all right now, isn't it? You stopped it."

Gary leaned closer, although it was only the two of them in earshot. Well, plus the ubiquitous cat, who wormed his way across the desk, scattering papers. "That's just it; I didn't, not yet. It still happens—only now it happens tonight." He opened the paper and reread the third account of the explosion of a transformer and the headless body of a nameless biker found nearby.

"Three times can't be a coincidence. He must be up to something." Marissa nodded in solemn agreement. "But whatever it is, I have to stop it from happening. Somehow."

Marissa clasped her hands around her cane. "What are you going to do, Gary? Call the police?"

Gary folded the paper and put it in his back pocket. "I'm going back to the art gallery. Maybe you were on to something before. He might be trying to rob the place and somehow sets off an explosion."

"The paper doesn't say what causes the explosion?" Marissa asked, absently petting the tabby cat as it brushed past her. It arrived every morning with the paper and hung around for milk and tidbits, only to vanish mysteriously in the night. "There's usually more to go on than this."

Gary scowled. "I know. I'll have to think of something when I get there." He checked his watch. "Time to go." He shrugged into his coat and hiked the collar, grabbing a hat and scarf.

Be careful," Marissa said. "If he's a burglar, he could be armed."

That thought had occurred to Gary, but he only said, "Put the cat out when you lock up." He turned back at the door. "I might be late."

But before Gary had the door half open, the cat had leapt from the desk and scuttled through the crack to wherever it was it went.

* * *

Armstrong stepped out of the shadows as Hobson left the bar. He was in an all mighty hurry. His detective senses on high alert, Armstrong tailed the bar owner on his clandestine errand. He'd find out once and for all what Hobson was up to and catch him in the act.

* * *

Rene dropped Richie off at the gallery to retrieve his bike and drove away with a cheery wave. Richie waved back, contentedly full of food and old memories. It felt good to touch bases with the art world, but it wasn't Richie's world anymore. One day, perhaps, he'd marry the finery with the cutlery as the Highlander had learned to do, but for now he'd best concentrate on honing his survival skills. There was always another Immortal out there looking to add to his tally.

Richie started for the alley and right on cue, he felt the buzz. He had been expecting it all night, but hadn't seen any reason to hurry the encounter. Now was as good a time as any.

He drew his sword in one fluid motion and stepped cautiously into the shadows that bathed the mouth of the alley. His eyes adjusted to the feeble light falling from a single fixture on a stanchion a story above his head. It cast a pool of light half way into the narrow passage between the buildings. There in its center stood his opposite number, gleaming blade at the ready.

Youngish, but that meant nothing, as Richie himself knew all too well. Medium height, medium build, unremarkable except for eyes that bore into his own—no doubt with the same cool speculation.

"I'm Richie Ryan," he made formal introduction, then added, "We don't have to do this. You can walk away."

A mirthless smile crossed the challenger's lips. "I think not, lad." He sketched a bow. "Justin Price, late of His Majesty's Bengal Lance."

Ok, Price had a century and more on him. Who didn't? Richie took his customary stance and raised his mental _ki_, just as the Highlander had taught him. He had a few tricks in his kit, for all his lack of years. And not a small tally of his own.

He nodded acknowledgement and moved into the opening position Mac had drilled into him in his sleep. Price smiled in recognition of a fellow swordsman, and moved to match and engage.

"There can be only one," Richie intoned the ritual phrase in conscious imitation of the Highlander.

The ring of steel on steel, as blades kissed and parted glissando. Richie felt the eclectic surge of energy—not the Immortal energy of a Quickening, but the very human adrenaline surge of battle—and let it wash through and over him, drawing a curtain between himself and the ordinary. He stood now out of time and all caring, not to enter again until he had killed for the privilege.

One of them would die tonight. Since time long forgotten it had been so for their kind. To meet and fight, or part until another meeting. But always to fight and kill—or die.

The Lancer was good; he was more than good. All too quickly Richie realized he was out of his class with this one. His moves were countered, turned, deflected; and all the while the Lancer's blade flicked past his defenses, pricking and prodding and driving him toward the inevitable.

His blade grew slick in his hand.

There can be only one. And that one was not going to be Richie Ryan.

* * *

Gary stopped beside a lamp post to catch his breath and check the paper. No change. A transformer was going to explode, setting fire to a pile of rubbish and burning beyond recognition the decapitated body of a drifter. It was supposed the drifter was killed outright in the explosion, the cause of which was still under investigation.

Which was newspaper jargon for who-the-hell-knew.

But now there was an addition: an article that wasn't there the last time he checked. Gary peered at the headline in disbelief. It was the Armstrong's building again. This time a woman was going to give birth in the vestibule of her apartment building. And things weren't going to go very well. Meredith Armstrong was in trouble. Gary looked up from the paper, casting about for an answer. He'd never make it back in time if he took care of the biker first.

Gary checked his watch: ten minutes to midnight. How could he be two places at once?

"What are you playing at, Hobson?"

"Armstrong!" Gray exclaimed. "Am I glad to see you!"


	3. Chapter 3

"It's freezing out, Hobson. What are you doing out here?"

"Well, I—"

"And don't tell me some cock 'n bull story like the last time." Armstrong said. "I've got better things to do tonight than track you all over the city."

"You do," Gary agreed, pouncing on the opening. "Yes you do. Didn't your wife see the doctor today? I think you should go home to her. Now."

"That's another thing," Armstrong said. "You just happened to be passing by our apartment this morning? You seem to always be passing by someplace, Hobson."

"Yes, and it was a good thing I was there," Gary said, leaning in conspiratorially. "You should get the super to salt the steps out front. Your wife could have slipped. She's really far along." He added. "Why, I wouldn't be surprised if her water broke and she had to call a cab _tonight_."

That got Armstrong's mind off of Gary and on to his very pregnant wife. Indecision warred on his face. Family won out.

"This isn't over, Hobson," he said finally, striding away.

"I couldn't be so lucky," Gary said under his breath.

Now for the pesky biker. The alley must be right over—

—There! No mistaking the location. Gary's attention was riveted to the strangest sounds he'd ever heard coming out of a Chicago side street. It sounded like...sword fighting. Swashbuckling, Robin Hood stuff.

A cold, sinking feeling hit him in the pit of the stomach. That was one explanation for a headless body.

Rolling up the paper on the fly, Gary sprinted for the mouth of the alley and confirmation of his theory.

There were two of them, not one, leaping and lunging like a couple of extras in a Camelot movie. Only it was quite evident that they weren't using props, as sparks flew from the clash of metal, and very real blood spattered one of them. As Gary took it all in, the biker from this afternoon slipped and went down hard, barely able to hold off the blows that rained down from his opponent's weapon.

"Hey!"

Without a care for the consequences, and too quickly for thought, Gary Hobson dashed into the alley brandishing his newspaper. Only when the swordsman turned to face him, bloody blade raised, did Gary realize the depth of his error.

The blood lust in those eyes would freeze a charging rhino. Thick Gary might be, but armor-plated he was not. He took an involuntary step backward, squelching sickly on something underfoot, and lost his balance. He put his hand out and hit—nothing. He went down in a sprawl of rubbish and rubbery limbs.

"Ah," growled the maniac. "One who watches us. I have encountered your kind before." He strode over to his new victim chuckling darkly. "You will not be making a report of this kill."

Gary's mind went blank in panic. He tried to scramble to his feet, but couldn't get beyond hands and knees, unable to get a purchase in the slick garbage. In a flash of sickly conviction, he knew who's headless body would be discovered in the morning. Burned beyond recognition.

"Leave him alone, Price!" The beaten biker had climbed to his feet, blade still clutched in his red fist. "Your battle's with me." Brave words from a dead man.

"Your turn will come soon enough, boy," Price said over his shoulder, all his attention for a goggle-eyed Gary.

In that instant, Gary's champion struck with razor sharp blades of his own. The cat who arrived every morning with the paper launched himself out of thin air to land on the swordsman's head.

The man shreiked, reeling. The sword dropped from his fingers as he clawed at the cat that clawed at his face and neck. His screams were muffled in cat fur. Blood ran from a dozen lacerations in a whirlwind of red fury.

He never knew when he stumbled into the biker's blade. It sent his head, cat and all, sailing clean off his shoulders. It hit the bricks with a meaty thud. The cat, indignant, hissed his displeasure and strode stiffly off.

Gary had barely taken this all in when something truly remarkable happened. The headless body seemed to sink to the ground in slow motion, like a rag doll in water. Before it settled, a silvery mist seeped from its neck to curl like sentient vapor around the biker.

The blood spattered kid stood transfixed in place, still clutching his crimson blade, while jagged fingers of lightning shot from his body to hit random points around the alley. The light overhead exploded, showering them in sparks. A transformer exploded. A trash can hit the wall beside Gary's head and he ducked and took cover beneath its battered lid.

The biker keened a primal wail, sinking to his knees, arms stretched heavenward. Tongues of blue flame danced along his sword, flickered in his eyes, bridged his parted lips and splayed fingers.

Electricity crackled in the air, raising the hairs on the back of Gary's head. He couldn't breathe such charged air and his chest heaved.

Then, slowly, the phenomenon faded away. Once again the alley was dark and quiet, except for the sound of labored breathing. And the flicker of a dozen spot fires. One of them resembled a human body, minus its head.

Gary beat at the singed cloth of his coat with the smoldering paper, still clutched in his hand, and climbed shakily to his feet.

The biker knelt on all fours, damp head downcast. His wounds had stopped oozing, and didn't look all that bad on second glance, though his clothes were pretty well sliced up. His breathing was steadying.

Gary ought to run, or scream, or laugh, or—something. What he did was open the paper. His hands shook as he turned the blackened pages.

The story was the same. It hadn't changed a jot. Gary surveyed the alley with an enlightened eye. Transformer, body, fire; it was all there. The facts remained the same. Only the cause for it had altered.

He hadn't been able to prevent it from happening. Or had he? He'd come awfully close to being a featured subject of his own paper. If it hadn't been for the cat—

"Cat?" He called, looking around, but it had vanished again. Typical.

"You've got the lives of a cat, mister."

Gary looked up, startled, to see the biker on his feet again. He didn't have his sword anymore—where had it gone? —but he didn't look any less menacing without it.

"I, ah,..." He swallowed hard. "What happened?" If curiosity killed the proverbial cat, he nevertheless understood the compulsion to know.

The biker cocked his head, studying him. "You don't know, do you."

Before Gary could blink, the biker had him by the wrists and was turning his arms this way and that.

"Where's the tattoo?" he demanded, pushing up the cuffs of his jacket roughly.

"What tattoo?" Gary said, jerking his arms out of the kid's grasp indignantly. He was reaching the end of his very frayed rope.

"If you're not a Watcher," the biker said, "then who the hell are you? How did you know to be here for the Quickening?"

Gary blinked. Quickening? It had a name—like a recurring event? All of a sudden, Gary didn't want to know anymore. Whatever it was, it wasn't a part of his world.

"I'm just a guy who gets the paper," he said simply, feeling suddenly tired.

He let the kid pull the paper from his fingers, a strange lassitude setting in. The kid opened it, read the masthead, turned a few pages, frowning.

"This is tomorrow's paper," he said, incredulous. As if there were things that didn't make sense in the world he was familiar with either. "I'll be damned. You read it in the paper." He handed it back, shaking his head, scattering droplets of sweat from his close-cropped red hair.

Gary had to laugh at the expression on the kid's face. He knew what it felt like from the inside.

"I guess we're both keeping secrets," he said at last, with the familiar weight of his burden back in his hip pocket.

"I guess we can keep a few more," said the biker, grinning crookedly. He looked no more than a kid when he smiled. Too young to carry such an awesome burden. Though what it was exactly, Gary had no idea.

"So, I guess I'll be going," Gary said, his voice sounding falsely cheery to his own ears as he edged toward the mouth of the alley and sanity.

The kid's smile quirked. "I'm not going to stop you, buddy. No one would believe you anyway."

Gary shrugged, grinning ruefully. "No one ever does."

When he glanced back at the corner, the kid was gone and the alley was empty save for the props of a fiction. He hurried away to the strains of approaching sirens.

Maybe the paper had it right after all. Who would believe the truth?

* * *

Richie Ryan, modern day Irish rover, read the paper over a cup of coffee in an all-night diner. Fresh off the presses, the early edition had just hit the newsstand. Old news. He wasn't sure what to make of that. Maybe some things were best left alone.

He dropped the pages on the counter and went to pay his bill. If he got on the road now, he'd beat the traffic out of the city. He could be in St. Louis by lunchtime. And someplace warmer by nightfall.

The dark eyed pixie of a waitress at the register put down her own paper and smiled up at him.

"Don't believe everything you read in the paper," he said, giving her a blue-eyed wink with his change.

* * *

"_Meooow!_" Plop.

Gary groaned and pulled the covers over his head.


End file.
